Agricultural Statistics, 
559 
the best, that men of business, as they put the paper down, may 
■be heard muttering about the ' harvest ' in the tone used when 
some baffling subject of a nature totally foreign to his habits 
intercepts the smooth deep current of calculation in the mind of 
a man accustomed to fore-calculate in everything. 
In the course of his evidence before the House of Lords' Com- 
mittee,* Mr. Leone Levi says, — 
" I believe merchants consider it of very great importance to them, to he as 
early as possible made acquainted with the probable wants of the country in 
matters of food ; because I need not say that the prices of grain have a very 
great influence on the prices of all other articles, and the Mark Lane Journal 
is the barometer by which the value of all other articles is regulated. It is 
also of the utmost importance to merchants, in order to regulate their specula- 
tions and their orders abroad for other articles of consumption, to be speedily 
informed whether we shall have abundance of grain at home, or whether w'e 
shall have to seek from foreign countries very large supplies. The influence 
of such uncertainty upon the Funds is always remarkable, and upon the 
liullion in the Bank. The possibility of having to send a great deal of gold 
abroad has very considerable influence on private credit, discounting bills, 
&c. All those transactions are very considerably affected by the uncertainty 
which prevails as to the result of the crops in this country. 
" There are other reasons besides in favour of obtaining such statistics as 
soon as jiossible : the later we are in foreign countries for our purchases, 
the less chance we have to obtain the grain. Our harvest here is about two 
months later than the harvest in Italy or France, and it is natural that 
immediately these countries find their crops to be very deficient, they should 
at once send for supplies, and as they are nearer the Danube, from Marseilles 
for instance, than we are, they get their supplies provided for from the Danube, 
Alexandria, and other places, before almost we know ourselves that we also 
want them. This of course affects very materially the commerce of the 
coimtr}\ The influence of such suddenness of rise in the price of grain, 
together vni]i the rise of freight, has also great influence on the rise or on 
the decline of the p)rices of other articles of consumption here, because the 
more we have to pay for grain the less we have to bestow upon other articles, 
and that affects their value, and our relations with the countries from whom 
we receive such articles of luxury ; our exports also are affected from the same 
causes, and thus it acts and re-acts in many ways. ... I know that esti- 
mates of the harvest are constantly made by i)rivate merchants and farmers, 
and these are abundantly published in the Mark Lane Express and other 
papers ; yet these estimates are generally uncertain, and are often made by 
■interested parties. Indeed the conflicting nature of such information is often 
the source of considerable fluctuation of prices. . , . The farmer stands upon 
the same level as the merchants, because, no doubt, whilst the merchants 
have often to pay dearer for gi'ain on account of their ignorance, the farmer 
often sells a larger quantity in the first instance at lower prices than he was 
justified in doing ; and this is especially the case with those who being least 
acquainted with the general state of the country, go on selling ; and, perhaps, 
after they have sold all they have they find that those who have been fortu- 
nate enough to hold get double for their prodirce. If information was more 
general, they would only be disposed to sell such portions as they are under 
necessity of selling, and that would enable them all to participate in the rise 
when that rise happens." 
* Eeport of Select Committee of the House of Lords on Agricultural Statistics, 
June, 1855, p. 128. 
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